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Wow, what a delightful surprise! Sakuno-chan's through to R3! Yes, her matches have been relatively easy ones and she has the least votes among the chars who are through to R3, but... she's there! URYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Picks: Yayoi, Haruka
Predictions: Yayoi, Haruka

Yes there's an im@s combo, but it's still difficult matches for both Yayoi and Haruka against Sanya and SUBARA. I'm really fine with either in both matches, although since Yayoi's in my top10, I'd be a little bit happier if she pulled through. Do your best, Yayoi!

The idols put up quite a fight but even with a combination they fall short of winning. Sanya and Kirame end up doing about as well as I thought they would. Sanya is going to make things very tough for the character that comes out of the other side of E Block. Should Kuro fail to make the Block finals, Kirami looks good enough to try and be a backup winner for the Saki fanbase.

First match is a battle between midcarders to try and advance to Round 3. To me, Rin looks like the strongest of the three but you can't really discount the Idolm@ster character here. Hibiki has a pretty good chance to take out Rin and they need to make up for the double loss they just took. I don't really expect much from Charlotte. While she's not that weak, she's probably going to get left behind. The second match is a vicious match between the winners of preliminary groups 9, 10 and 11. The worst part is, winning this match isn't enough to cruise into the Top 8. A strong opponent awaits the winner in Round 3 as well. In terms of base strength, Kuro should be the strongest. She should be Saki's #2 and arguable the second strongest character in the tournament. The problem is Ryuuka. Ryuuka is one of the stronger Saki characters will split the Saki fanbase a bit with Kuro. This give Nyaruko a great opportunity to steal the win. While Ryuuka is likely to get thrown under the bus she'll hurt Kuro at least a bit and every vote may count in Kuro vs Nyaruko. I think Kuro will come out on top still.

Votes:
Charlotte Dunois
Matsumi Kuro

Predictions:
Toosaka Rin
Matsumi Kuro

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A miracle that you believe in when you know it won't happen......... is hope.

I usually don't get into the prediction game with Saimoe competitions, but I'm going to predict a Nyaruko victory in the hopes of jinxing it.

No offense to Nyaruko, but as a big Saki fan, my preference would definitely be either of the two Saki girls.

And in all seriousness, I really think this could be a very nasty split for Saki allowing Nyaruko to come up the middle and take it. I could definitely see Ryuuka's supporters being pretty hard votes - Many of them probably aren't just fans of Saki, but are also big fans of the Toko-Ryuuka pairing in particular. I'm not sure if they'd be willing to abandon Ryuuka to support Kuro (while they likely would support Kuro against almost anybody else).

Plus, Saki faction voters haven't struck me as being particularly well-organized in this tournament. What I mean by that is that I haven't seen much evidence of them trying to snipe the top competitors, or "play" J-SaiMoe in general. For good or for ill, they seem to be voting with their heart.

^^ actually Saki's fairly organized as a faction(or at least vote rushes in the end always save them). In fact, this isn't even the first time they've dealt with splits (Nodoka-Tacos-Maria back in 2010) and prevailed. And if someone's gonna prevail here, it's probably Kuro (Ryuuka didn't get that much airtime afterall even with the awesome pairing). Kuro's like, Class A Saki. This is gonna be a real toughie though.

Most of the time though Saki fans just vote for Saki characters (period) which is partly the reason why they chocked in both 09 and 10 but they have TOKI this year (who is the clear favorite Saki girl) and Toki has a lot of momentum (which is what most Saimoe champions have //besides Mami perhaps) so Saki literally has a good chance of winning this year's tourney.

^^ actually Saki's fairly organized as a faction(or at least vote rushes in the end always save them). In fact, this isn't even the first time they've dealt with splits (Nodoka-Tacos-Maria back in 2010) and prevailed. And if someone's gonna prevail here, it's probably Kuro (Ryuuka didn't get that much airtime afterall even with the awesome pairing). Kuro's like, Class A Saki. This is gonna be a real toughie though.

Most of the time though Saki fans just vote for Saki characters (period) which is partly the reason why they chocked in both 09 and 10 but they have TOKI this year (who is the clear favorite Saki girl) and Toki has a lot of momentum (which is what most Saimoe champions have //besides Mami perhaps) so Saki literally has a good chance of winning this year's tourney.

I hope you're right. I'd be quite pleased with a Toki victory this year. I was kind of disappointed by what happened to Shizuno, but maybe that was more of a special case than anything.